For those wondering how the Victorian government is travelling, here’s a good summary from The Age’s Paul Austin:
The great public transport squeeze and the water crisis could make or break Brumby.
WHEN he became premier a year ago, John Brumby hit the ground running. He enjoys the plaudits he receives for injecting new energy into an ageing Government. But he is less keen for people to dwell on a couple of big questions that arise from all the activity evident in Spring Street: why does Brumby have to run so hard, and what is he running from?
Brumby is having to run so hard because he is playing political catch-up. The Government is scrambling to find a policy framework that matches the on-the-ground reality of a city and state groaning under the pressure created by the twin challenges of climate change and a population explosion.
Hospitals, schools, and Laura Norder haven’t entirely gone away (the running battle between “colourful” Police Association secretary Paul Mullett and Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon continues in the background), but Austin is right that the big issues in Victorian politics at the moment are water and transport.
Personally, I don’t think it’s entirely fair to blame the government for not acting fast enough on Victoria’s major cities’ water supplies. The reduction in inflows to Melbourne’s water storages over the last decade (which you can see on this nifty graph) dwarfs any other historical dry periods, and is well beyond anything predicted by climate change studies. So it’s not surprising that the government didn’t react quicker. While I don’t think the government’s management of the situation has been perfect (they’ve wimped out on recycling, and water restrictions are a very blunt instrument for managing demand) I certainly wouldn’t have been commissioning major new water supplies back in, say, 2005, wise in hindsight as it would have appeared.
On public transport, the seeds of the government’s reluctance to invest are, while perhaps less forgiveable, also not surprising. The new Bracks government’s first experience with trains left them with their fingers badly burned. One of the key election promises in the 1999 election campaign, where Labor won a massive swag of seats in Victoria’s provincial cities, was the Regional Fast Rail Project. The project was to bring much faster train trips to the key regional centres of Ballarat, Bendigo, and the Latrobe Valley, and cost the government $80 million with the aid of private money. The private money never materialized, the decrepitude of the existing infrastructure became apparent. $750 million later, the fast rail project arrived with substantially lower time savings than originally promised. Not only that, there’s the ongoing money sink of the myki ticketing system (from what I’ve heard, the transport ticketing agency didn’t hire anyone who’d implemented an electronic ticketing system before, signed up a contractor who’d never built an electronic ticketing system before, and who’d never had a government contract before) and other, lower-profile stuffups like the failure of an attempt to replace the inner-Melbourne train control system. Contrast this with the smooth, arms-length construction of roads like the Craigieburn Bypass and the EastLink tollway project, and it’s not entirely surprising that the government hasn’t been thrilled about additional public transport investment. Unfortunate, sure, but not surprising.
Of course, now the government is scrambling to catch up in both areas. Of the two big water projects, the Sugarloaf Pipeline - which is incredibly unpopular in some rural areas, but which the government is quite right to go ahead with - will nevertheless not be completed until 2010. The desalination plant won’t be ready until 2011. And major overhauls of Melbourne’s rail network, such as the north-south rail tunnel proposed in the Eddington Report, will take take at least five years, perhaps more.
John Brumby will have to hope that a set of incremental improvements in the meantime - a collection of track duplications, extra rolling stock, and scheduling changes on Melbourne’s rail network, and the reconnection of the Tarago Reservoir to provide a small boost to supplies in 2009 - and demonstrated progress on the big infrastructure projects, will be enough to satisfy Victoria’s voters in 2010.
Rob,
I can’t approve of water going south of the divide while the wetlands of the Murray system are in such a parlous state.
Have to be careful what I say here, but I did the hydrological modelling for the Melbourne Water Climate Change Study (pdf), completed twelve months earlier but released in 2005. At the time, I suspected we were in for a sustained dry period, driven by climate variability. We discussed it at the time but did not quantify the impacts.
This is what we did say:
However, this was said in a technical report that was posted only recently.
These following words were in the summary report, but not featured prominently in caveats in the summary or conclusions.
However, since then I have been including prominent caveats that climate change acting with climate variability may amplify risks more than the modelling indicates. The models only do human-induced climate change, not climate chnage plus natural variability. These warnings may be futile. Worded caveats are generally overlooked in favour of numbers.
My conclusion? Quantify all risks, even those with low confidence.
With regards to all these big projects. I would prefer to see a broader remit on assessing all risks up front and in getting a more holistic balance between economic, social and environment goals.
I’m not sure it was done for the pipeline, despite the win-win for a large part of the agribusiness sector in the Goulburn Valley. What are the savings under a drier climate? Who would be damaged most if they don’t get water - city dwellers? Icon wetlands? Horticulturalists?
The same could be said of the Eddington Plans - are they robust under climate change, or do we need to adopt a broader approach?
The trouble with big projects is that they have to be done properly the first time. This is very difficult if you’re in the red zone and most focused on reducing the immediate threat (which may be a symptom, not a cause).
Its pretty basic isn’t it? If governments (nationally) are going to champion aggresive immigration policies of 160,000 plus new human beings a year for the sake of industry and the eocnomy the states need to plan for this.
Instead they spend their time playing party politics, staging endless charades to convince the voters the other party is crap instead of focusing on good policy. Madness.
Very interesting points Roger. But, frankly, agriculture pays a tiny fraction of what Melbourne will for water. So, as far as I’m concerned, environment first, domestic supplies (and thus the pipeline) second, and agriculture can get whatever’s left over.
75GL is a pretty small fraction of the annual diversions from the system.
Robert, Re your “nifty” graph. It shows inflows into the Thompson reservoir when it wasn’t even built.
And what do you expect if you add 1 million people to a city and don’t add to the water storages(i.e. build a new dam). Blame it on climate change. Yeah people will buy that but the adds will have to be good.
ChrisL: yes. So? The point is that inflows into Melbourne’s catchments have dropped like a stone over the last decade.
The experience of Melbourne - and Perth - has shown it can happen, but nothing like it has occurred since records have been kept.
Depends how critical the environment may get - 75 GL could be crucial.
And frankly I would like to see technical details of the recovery from the irrigation distribution system upgrade, a surface groundwater water balance that showed where the recovered water may have gone when the system was leaking, an assessment of what proportion of recovery you might get under drought conditions, and an assessment of assets that may get upgraded but stranded if current conditions continue.
If there was plenty of water I would agree with you 100%
Fair points. What if the water was just bought from irrigators outright?
I agree that there’s a big punt being taken that there will be 75GL available to take from the system. But if the inflows into the Murray-Darling system stay as ridiculously low as they are at the moment, we’ve got far bigger problems than a white elephant pipeline.
Chrisl,
we could halve our internal domestic water use and maintain our current standard of living without blinking. It’s 80 L per person per day at our house with grey water going on the garden, and I can’t say we’re trying particularly hard.
Demand in Melbourne has remained pretty constant over last couple of decades despite increasing numbers of people (low now because of the drought, but it would be lower in any case).
Robert, somewhere I saw or heard a comment that the state government was timing their water purchases to ensure that the feds got all the flack for buying up first. I’m not sure it will get any cheaper in the long run.
I’m happy with water being bought, but I also know that a number of perverse incentives have crept into the water markets which are not helping farmers or the environment.
My mother is going stone mad in Northern Victoria because NSW irrigators are writing letters to the local paper blaming the South Australians for their woes (Greedy water thieves apparently). They’re trying to kick up a stink to head off any allocations to the Coorong.
There is a lot of fear out there. It would help if we had more information to inform debate, but something about commercial in confidence …
I am no expert on this subject but often hear folks, on the radio, complaining about logging in Victoria around critical water catchment areas and the subsequent damage to supply, in the long term.
Can anyone make me feel comfortable that Brumby has his head around that one?
Roger: I agree that we could all use less water, (although I am disappointed to see my vegie garden go) however there is a limit to the amount that can be saved. If population and industry increase, it is obvious water will eventually run out.Encouraging people to spend thousands of dollars on small rainwater tanks is madness, and no solution at all. If everyone contributed the cost of a rainwater tank, we could have the best water system anywhere. Dams , recycling ,efficiency , the works.
joe2: there’s some truth to it. Regrowing forest absorbs more water than mature trees (though if all you’re interested in is collecting water, chop the trees down permanently…).
That said, from what I’ve seen of the figures, it’s a pretty small amount in the greater scheme of things.
roger - isn’t it true that metro water usage in australia is about 2/5ths of sfa compared to rural water usage. Added to that rural water pricing has encouraged overuse of marginal land at subsidised rates.
A few people should get real. The big city water user is industry ( and why that can’t be recycled water is beyond me), the big user of water in the country is agriculture.
Like it or not agriculture is moving north ( guess what they have water) and no one in their right mind is going to let a city of several million die to save a country town of less than 100,000, and any one who thinks they should needs to sit down and think it through.
Brumby has done the right thing. And whats the alternative. It looks like the Liberal policy is going to be denialism. We are in very serious times, thank god Brumby just got in a did what needed to be done.
Charles: nope. In Melbourne, household use is well over double that of indstry.
I hope not, but I fear that the probability that it will happen to Adelaide is far too high.
Adelaide is not going to die. Were the Murray to dry up, getting their entire water supply from desalination would only cost a few hundred dollars per year per capita. Recycling their pooh (as distinct from Mildura’s) is even cheaper.
FXH,
true enough. A couple of years ago before the restrictions hit, rural water use was 76%. I think we can improve in all three of our big water uses: rural, urban, industrial. Industrial was actually the first of these three to brings its overall usage down, but can do more.
Chrisl, agree that many actions are necessary. What people will pay for is interesting. An economist colleague, who I have debated the Sugarloaf pipeline with, has paid a substantial marginal cost to get grey water onto his garden. He is quite aware that his view of the economics of the smal and large are different, but he is getting a benefit he is willing to pay for, though perhaps not overjoyed.
A few years ago, the rational cost for tanks in terms of what was paid for the water was wildly uneconomic. But look at what else we pay for in our houses, many to just bolster our social status.
Houses really are habitat for humans - shouldn’t we think about what constitutes sustainable habitat?
To the topic of this post - big projects - I want to see big picture sustainability and I want up front triple bottom line assessment, technical detail, how the technology may play out in social terms, economic efficiency in its execution and operation, but the initial investment may have to be higher than we’d like to ensure greater long-term gains. Clearly a role for a government who understands this.
Can anyone nominate such a government?
If the Liberals can get their act together and propose a dam, they’ll be swept back in a landslide on that policy alone.
However, expecting the state party to get it’s act together is a tall ask.
“If the Liberals can get their act together and propose a dam, they’ll be swept back in a landslide on that policy alone.”
They did that before the last election, and lost in a landslide.
I don’t think they ran on a dam Spiros, and I think we can both agree they didn’t (& don’t) have their act together.
joe, regarding logging in the catchments, the simplest answer is nobody is entirely sure (yet). The best available science is here. Money quote from the modelling is:
In essence, compared to drought, bushfire risk, and general forest dynamics, forestry is basically trivial/irrelevant.
Few are aware of the current inquiry into Melbourne’s Future Water Supply. It was referred by the Legislative Committee in Sep-2007 but the invitation for submissions and where to send them was only a couple of days ago. Full details on the significant dates and some quick maths on them that make this look like an inquiry the Vic ALP wants to be only a Clayton’s inquiry here. I hope those folk commenting in this thread put their expertise (much greater than mine) in submissions.
Craig, Bailleau promised to build a dam on the Maribyrnong River at Keilor. He won’t make the same mistake twice. As policies go, it was as popular as promising everyone a free case of the clap. He won’t do it again.
There are only a very few dam options - raising Glenmaggie probably akes sense.
It’s common knowledge that Thwaites was against the desal plant, and that was a small part of his decision to retire. Thwaites thought more recycling would be cheaper and better.
wilful… on “common knowledge that Thwaites was against the desal plant”… let’s hope he puts his case to the inquiry as a member of the public!!!!
I still cannot quite understand why a kind of ’second best’, recycle the water option, from the “pooh” is not adopted.
Assure the public that they will not be drinking it and direct, those poopy pipes, straight to industry to use.
“If the Liberals can get their act together and propose a dam.’
Bring back Bolte I say.
I stand corrected - he did campaign on that, but I could be forgiven for not noticing/remembering. The biggest problem with his proposal was that it just wasn’t big enough - it smacked of symbolism and it’s hardly surprising it didn’t capture the public’s imagination.
What the city needs is another Thompson Dam. It was designed to drought-proof Melbourne for 40 years and it’s served that purpose admirably. It’s time to plan for the next 40 years and idiotic desal plants aren’t the answer. If the Libs still care about being in state government they must campaign on a new dam. I’ve given up all hope for a useful ALP government - even one without the dead weight of John Thwaites.
The thing is Craig Mc it’s been done, it is a pipeline to connect Melbourne into the Goulburn system.
The only other option was to connect Melbourne into the Gippsland systems and build a few more dams down there.
And what is wrong with desal plants? We are up to using Membranes, Siemans have patented using electric fields. The energy costs are falling. If this climate change thing continues we will live in a desert and we will need them.
Perhaps this time they were wise up front and in hindsight.
wilful - I love the part of your quote that says “assuming no bushfires”. Were these folk modelling Victoria or Antarctica?? Aussuming no bushfires, indeed….
Dave Bath on Thwaitesy: ” let’s hope he puts his case to the inquiry as a member of the public!!!!”
He’s also a Professor dealing with sustainability it seems. Ummmm let’s see: would water supply be an issue affecting sustainability?
That’s the best option. It was on Melbourne Water’s books as part of the post-Thompson era. Better than let it run though peoples’ living rooms like it did twice last year.
Don’t hold your hopes out that we’ll get a plant based on some patent filed today, We’ll get electricity-driven electrolysis to produce water at least an order of magnitude more expensive than that from a dam. The fact that it runs off wind turbines only makes the real cost worse again.
If and when there is a major fire in the catchments, we’ll have a very few short years in which to make major decisions about consumption in Melbourne. A recycling plant will be built straight away, there will be no other water. To restate plainly, a hot fire would be an unmitigated disaster for water supply.
Craig Mc, building more dams is pointless - as they are all emptying, and another empty one won’t do any good - even if it is the size of the Thompson Dam. We have drastically reduced rainfall due to climate change. That is why the Brumby government has panicked and lurched into building the desal plant (against their 2006 election campaign position) and the pipeline to steal non-existent water from the Goulburn (and hence the Murray Darling) to Melbourne. Interesting, both these projects will significantly increase carbon emissions. And Penny Wong backed the 90-120 MW desal plant last week . . .
If you look at Melbourne’s water usage it is apparent that Melbourne’s water needs could be met by stopping logging in water catchments (30GL per year), increased recycling of water (300+ GL per year), and increased use of storm water (400+ GL per year), combined with reducing domestic usage below 270 litres per person per day, which is still quite high.
Unfortunately, the government is fixated on mega projects and high energy (carbon emission solutions) financed by PPPs (essentially privatised). There is zero public consultation - Brumby and Holding know best - but apparently Thwaites did not agree and lost the argument.
Small distributed solutions just don’t get serious consideration. Despite the fact they cost less, don’t have nearly the same carbon emissions, and are effective! Go figure. More details on this here:[here]
I will do a separate post on the disgraceful Victorian Government greenwash to continue logging in water catchments. Here is a teaser: [link]
Postglobalisation’s pertinent point @ 2 seems to have been been inexplicably ignored. Why are the Victorian and Federal Governments deliberately encouraging population growth when meeting the needs of the additional people necessitates the trampling of the rights of established communities in rural areas, regional areas and in Melbourne itself?
Some websites with information about community struggles against the developer-backed Brumby tyranny include: [link], Green Wedges (gwc.org.au), [link], Macedon Ranges Residents’ Association ([link]) [link] and [link].
Some articles which describe how the development is getting out of control in Victoria include In Parliament: The Big Victorian BBQ: 1 million more guests than expected of 17 Jul 08, Undermining local democracy: Macedon Ranges: Pork Barrelling and other forms of Influence of 17 Jul 08, “Costs order against Blue Wedges a bad sign for democracy” - Greens MP Sue Pennicuik of 16 Jul 08, Bass Coast community assembly continues in new location of 16 Jul 08, SEITA tollway using old data on oil prices of 12 Jul 08, What Can YOU Do To Stop Road Tunnels Destroying Royal Park and Democracy? of 12 Jul 08, Community battles to save historic Willsmere Billabong of 11 Jul 08, Dead fish in Yarra should mean a stop to toxic dredging of 8 Jul 08, Brumby’s water hypocrisy (or Spin running dry) of 7 Jul 08, Grave concerns: new state residential zones and loss of council planning powers in Melbourne of 7 Jul 08, Melbourne protests mass population growth and its profiteers of 7 Jul 08 and Melbourne 2008: Life in a destruction zone of 29 Jun 08.
Two times the city’s annual requirements whooshed down the Mitchell last year. Capturing that is the antithesis of pointless. Now, pretending that all the dams are emptying because of climate change and not because of increased demand really is pointless.
Criag Mc: I’ll tell you what pointless is: Letting the floods whoosh down the Mitchell, letting it run into the sea, then building a co2 factory to take the salt out of it and piping it back again.At three times the cost for half the water!
ChrisI: Amen brother.
PeterC: as you perfectly well know, stormwater capture has been costed and the desal plant is a lot cheaper.
If you spent the money saved on more wind turbines, the environment still ends up well in front.
Craig: a dam on the Mitchell river is a political non-starter.
Everybody from city environmentalists to Craig Ingram would fight you if you tried.
Wow, that might number in the tens of thousands. There’s no hope for the state’s voters to outweigh that kind of mass movement!
Saying that a department commissioned study is a secret plan is more than a stretch, but here’s the state of play about water prior to the last election, as far as the Australian reported it.
$1.2 bn for a Mitchell river dam, “”Dams were the better-performed option financially but rated poorly on environmental, social and policy criteria,”
The trouble with storm water is that it’s all over the bottom of the catchment and in the expensive bits of real estate. catching it, cleaning it up and putting at the top of the catchment is very hard.
Peterc’s concern about logging is driven by a hatred of the industry, not a concern about water impacts. It’s, as shown, pretty trivial in the scheme of things. 16 GL by 2050. Also, as said, when the bushfire comes, it’s all over for both water and timber.
While I agree with him that there is more low hanging fruit in reducing demand, I think the focus could be more usefully applied to wasteful industrial and agricultural practices. Melburnians are already using 22% less per person in a few short years.
meanwhile, it looks like Brumby is going for the cross-city rail tunnel.
I like spending lots of money on public transport infrastructure. Not sure it should be spent on this though.
A cross-city tunnel is probably a cut-price version of what the city really needs - a city-loop duplication. Currently there are four uni-directional tracks acting as choke-points for every line coming into the city.
The original loop ended up costing $500M in 1980s money. Of course, how you redesign the rest of the network to use any new tunnels is yet another problem. Something needs to be done - the network is at capacity during peak hours.
I’m glad I haven’t had to commute into the city since the 80s.
Craig, I’m no expert, but my understanding is that they need to fix North Melbourne, country train scheduling, and signalling, then they would have a lot more capacity on the loop. Sounds relatively cheap to me.
$500 million! pre-PPPs I guess. Bargain.
One thing that always seems to get forgotten in rail infrastructure discussions is maintaining heavy freight connections so they’re not in conflict with commuters or residents. Noisy smelly slow diesels need to go to Hastings and the east, and to Webb dock and Coode island, without upsetting inner city residents or express electric trains. Difficult.
In the longer term, I have only just started to get my head around the idea and benefits of electrified freight. not happening here any time soon it appears, but some discussion would be good.
As a Melbourne westie, I am appalled at the air quality issues when a slow moving, still warming up set of haulers belch their way through Footscray. I’m sure the EPA wouldn’t dare set up a monitoring station, they’d have to close down the industry.
Robert, if you have any information to support your assertion, please provide a link. I haven’t seen any to date. I think its bullshit.
Wilful, making personal attacks doesn’t address the issue in question.
It is really very simple; logging in catchments costs us about 30GL of water per year (one fifth of what the desal plant would produce). It is just common sense to protect our catchments, as 14 Melbourne councils have now supported. The water is worth more to us than the woodchips.
Craig Mc, your proposed dam on the Mitchell might fill up with a flood once every 15 years and would be empty the rest of the time so it would clearly be useless most of the time. Also, the water-starved Gippsland lakes system - mainly due to diversion of the Latrobe River for Melbourne’s water supplies - would be further deprived of water and end up dead like the Murray mouth.
So Brumby says today he wants to remove water restrictions? We are better off strengthening them, recycling our water, using more stormwater (including domestic tanks). County people know this, but city folk are still basically profligate in their use of water. Just look at all the huge domestic swimming pools.
Melbourne’s water supplies can be met with very little addditional environmental impact. But the Government’s fixation on mega carbon intensive solutions makes them blind to this. Let’s hope they wake up before our goose is cooked. And the Liberals of course are no better . . .
Well that’s 1981 money I guess, so you’d probably need to at least quadruple it for today’s money. Plus it took a decade or more to do, which is longer than almost all PPPs can wait for return.
Because if a river is not flooding, it obviously must be empty.
Peterc, if you think that was a personal attack (which you’ve been known to make on the odd occasion) then you need to go back and have another read.
Firstly, 16GL not 30GL, using worst and best case scenarios for water yield (noting that worst case isn’t what the industry are suggesting). This is a cumulative water yield increase of 1.0% by 2050.
Secondly, what the hell do Councils know about anything?
The pure and simple fact is that the only thing driving low dams right now is low rainfall. Virtually the only thing driving it in the future is bushfire.
The only thing that may ameliorate a bushfire are heavy machinery crews that are experienced at operating in densely wooded, steep terrain (what, like logging contractors? yes, just like them) who have access along roads that are subsidised due to forestry access.
Wilful, I think you should read again what you wrote and reflect upon it.
Quite a lot actually. Boroondara Council officers wrote a report on why logging in catchments should stop. You can down load it from [here]
Here is their conclusion, voted on by Council and supported 8 votes for 1 against:
Bushfires is in catchments is an issue too. But logging exacerbates this as it removes fire resistent cool temperate understory, particularly in drainage gullies, and replaces it with drier more fire-prone regrowth.
It is pretty obvious that logging in catchments should stop, and that the reason it continues is political. The Labor party just can’t break their union and industry shackles on this. But they probably will in the run up to the 2010 election.
Building another brown coal power station (and the desal plant) will of course ramp up climate change further too . . .
PeterC: the engineering study of desal siting options (don’t have time to Google, too busy) also looked at stormwater capture options. You might take the view that it was biased, but it reported that the stormwater capture options were dearer than desal for Melbourne.
Furthermore, this study commissioned by the ACF indicates that water tank retrofits simply are much more expensive than desal.
Just like domestic PV, Peter; sometimes big ugly centralized engineering schemes are cheaper than distributed solutions.
That would be all the elm logging on the Burke Road Hill catchment then. You know - just behind JB HiFi. Amcor has an office across the road - they’ve almost completely felled the west side by now.
They probably keep that report next to the ones on building fusion reactors and curing cancer. To paraphrase Homer “Councils, is there anything they can’t do?”.
Peter: We’re in heated agreement on brown coal; unless the industry can demonstrate CCS working on a large scale in the next couple of years (and they can’t), the Latrobe Valley is going to have to be shut down.
“Cool temperate” is a technical term peterc, referring to a rainforest community. As a plain matter of fact, rainforest hasn’t been harvested in Victoria since (at least) the 1980s, with pretty strong prescriptions against it. That said, our remnant Gondwanan rainforest is likely going to be wiped out by climate change.
There’s no scientific evidence that timber harvesting increases the intensity of wildfire, but plenty of direct operational evidence that the experience of driving a bulldozer in this kind of terrain is irreplaceable, and the access roads are put there and maintained by the timber industry.
Of course, the roads have plenty of other bad features about them, but that’s not germane here.
I’m not even going to bother with the local council claim - as a matter of fact the wilderness society do a better job (even though that was just a cut n paste job). Which doesn’t make them more correct…
Yes, we need shut down the dirty coal fired power stations over time, but I think there is a great opportunity to transition the Latrobe Valley to be a hub and centre for solar and renewable energy manufacturing and production.
Rather than Batchelor’s “Dirty Clean Coal Institute” we need a “Renewable Energy Insistute” (since Labor and the coal industry have misappropriated the word “clean”). There would be good export opportunties and income for this too.
There is also a great geothermal site near Maffra, and obviously a lot more opportunity for wind power along the coast (Orange-bellied parrot not withstanding).
We just need more political leadership rather than the Batchelor Brumby approach of digging the open pit coal mines deeper and pretending they are are “clean”.
On the water tank analysis, my calculations are that we could yield savings equivalent to 175GL by spending $3b on domestic rainwater tanks, with much lower carbon emissions than desal. I have written to the Government on this but silence is the answer. They are in a bunker, and fixated on mega projects.
This is a simpler method for collection and use of stormwater than large scale downstream options.
The Government should ask the people what they want rather than ramming decisions through without any public consultation or engagement. After all, they supposed to represent us, not rule as an autocracy which backflips on issues like desal.
Let’s have a referendum on the options. Personally, I favour a mix of centralised and distributed. I would prefer 1b on desal and 2b on water tanks and recycling. And reducing carbon emissions, rather than increasing them.
Brumby wants to build the new brown coal power station partly to power the desal plant. Water tanks would use a fraction of the power - despite Brumby’s ill-informed comments to the opposite.
Craig Mc,
The elms in the Burke Rd catchment, the remnant Ashburton Forest and private lawns and gardens have been really struggling due to ongoing water restrictions. The recent rains will hopefully help them out a bit.
Boroondara spends $1m a year trucking recycled water to parks and ovals. So logging in catchments is costing them (and me as a ratepayer) money because it is depriving Melbourne of water.
Desal and empty dams are ineffective “cures”. Stopping logging in catchments is scientifically proven and effective “prevention”.
except for the effective bit.
On the logging in water catchments “sustainablity assessment” that DSE is currently doing - it is a greenwash.
The best option they have specified is to “phase down logging in catchments by 2030″ - by which time they will have logged all the high quality forests they want.
They are modelling the “best” option to exit all logging in catchments by 2010, but political intervention from the government has precluded this option going to cabinet. Which is of course nonsense.
They have ruled out input/feedback from environment group stakeholders (of which I was one) that exiting logging in catchments by 2010 is the best option for safeguarding Melbourne’s water supply, and in line with what the public wants.
The government doesn’t really care about what the public wants or protecting Melbourne’s water supply, or that our water is worth more than the woodchips.
I predict they will announce “protection of Melbourne’s water catchments by 2015″ in the run up to the 2010 state election and claim that this is great outcome. Meanwhile, the chainsaws and bulldozers are working overtime, and we continue to lose our water.
Peterc, if you knew anything about logging in the catchments, you’d know that it’s scheduled years in advance, and that the area logged, about 200 hectares (out of 157 000 hectares), is both well-fixed and a substantial reduction over previous periods.
So what you’ve said above is patently untrue. Which you would know, since you say you’ve been part of it.
And you know what went to Cabinet? Oh really? You are a man on the inside!
OK, guys, this is getting a little offtopic and a little willing.
Robert, surely, the issue of the effect of logging on water catchments is ‘bang on topic’ as to how the “Victorian government is travelling”.
It is not much spoken about in the dailys but a couple of folks are talking about it quite passionately here. With vastly different opinions.
Hope they do not stop, because I might learn something.
Maybe they should just cool down a little.
Sorry, will attempt to avoid all snark in the future. It’s unbecoming.
However, I may have to limit my responses from time to time, I can’t always easily respond dispassionately when I see something that I believe to be deliberately misleading.
My bottom line when it comes to harvesting in the catchments is pretty simple:
* conservation groups are using it because they don’t like harvesting full stop - they have an a priori ideological, non-rational motivation. Large old tree worship.
* information about water impacts has been poor, it is getting better. This has allowed misinformation to flourish.
* under normal rainfall conditions harvesting happily coexisted with water supply. Indeed it has for a very long time. More was being harvested a while back when the dams were full of high quality water.
* The recent dry period is unprecedented. If it’s climate change then taking harvesting out does make economic sense, because Melbourne supply is considered more important. If it’s just a dry period, then stopping harvesting makes no sense.
* harvesting remains relatively trivial, the far greater issues are the fact that the forest is regrowing from 1939, and bushfires will happen in the future, and then we’re all stuffed.
* Ultimately, harvesting will be drawn down, due mostly to politics, also due to the economics, where poor decisions in other spheres for expensive desalinated water and limited water conservation measures press this otherwise sustainable industry out of business.
(I wonder how much Southern Rural Water charge for their water from the Thomson? A lot less than desal water I bet).
Having typed all that up, I reckon I don’t have any more to say on the subject f forests here for the time being. I know I’ll never convince Peterc of anything, and vice versa. Happy to talk about other Vic government management issues.
I am not to interested in apologists for logging in water catchments. As noted, I won’t agree with their spin. They will continue to spread misinformation about this topic as they have been doing for years. I speak of my own recent experiences, and of scientific evidence collected to date.
So the facts are:
* Logging in catchments reduces water quality and quantity. State Government research in 2002 indicated this was causing the loss of 20GL per year from the Thompson catchment alone. Much of which has now been logged. Have a look on Google maps or Google earth to see for yourself. And read the 2002 Our Water Our Future Government report.
* The government instructed “consulation process” by DSE on this topic in progress right now has ruled out the option of stopping logging in water cathments prior to 2030 - so that existing wood supply contracts are met, (and presumably so that a few local logging jobs in marginal seats and CFMEU factions are not lost).
* The process itself recognises internally that stopping logging by 2010 is the “best case scenario” for water yield increase. Yet it is excluded from consideration as a “poliitically acceptable” option, we were informed.
* Nothing has gone to cabinet yet - the process greenwash is still in train. But the stakeholder reference group was informed that the exit by 2010 option was excluded from future cabinet consideration by instruction from government. This is political interference with proper process. Or maybe proper process just doesn’t exist where the Brumby government is involved?
* The consultation process is consequently a sham. Community feedback on the best option is being ignored. So I, and every other environment group bar one, have withdrawn from the consultation - which is now proceeding with mostly industry and company representatives.
Think back to the Otways in early 2006. The Bracks government furiously denied evidence that logging was destroying the Otway forests and that they should be protected. Then in the middle of the state election campaign they announced glowingly that they were “protecting the Otways forests with a new national park”. Future dated, so logging has proceeded up until now. Some areas are (or soon will be) protected, but much has been destroyed between then and now.
Spot the pattern? They will do the same thing again with water catchments. Denial (as per Wilful), then a glowing announcement for future-dated protection of the water cathcments in the midst of the 2010 election campaign. Allowing enough time for them to log out the remaining high quality ash forests - they don’t care about the rest. I peduct the future date to be 2015.
If the quantity logged is so low (as claimed by Wilful, the Government, and the loggers) then it surely follows that it is easy to just stop it now? But no, they judge woodchips to more important than our water.
And they want us to pay $3b to produce desal water - at much greater expense than stopping the woodchipping in the catchments.
This really is the “State of Victorian politics - it’s all about the projects”. Just add “and vested interests” too. Keep the insane logging going (politics), then spend billions on a mega project (desal) to attempt to “fix it”. And crank up carbon emissions on both counts.
This is a bigger picture view of this syndrome: [link]
Here is the DSE website for the Harvesting in Catchments process if you want to look at the details.
So Peterc, how you going with that dislike of personal attacks (comment #45)?
Keep going, you’ll get there.
Ok, that’s it. Thread closed.